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Right now I am racing toward the Beijing Exhibition Theater to see Lu Chen’s magic tour, and I am extremely excited. I did wonder whether one show could possibly be worth almost half my paycheck. But first, I already bought the ticket (nonrefundable, sob), and second, I trust Mr. Lu not to disappoint his audience.

The first time I saw magic as a child was in a small shop on Hefang Street. After school, while running wildly with my friends, I caught a glimpse of a flashy shop from the corner of my eye and approached curiously. The owner was an old grandma. When she saw us kids, she smiled mysteriously and said she was willing to perform a magic trick for us. I remember she took a banknote (did we kids even have money back then? It was probably hers?) and a pen, and then suddenly pierced the banknote with the pen!

Me: How much is the fine for damaging currency? (Heavens, was my EQ that low back then?)

Her: I’ll turn it back for you.

With that, she pulled the pen back, and the banknote was completely intact.

Hearing this, the clever you must know that the pen is a specially treated prop held together by magnets. But that’s the thing with magic—watching it live versus hearing someone explain it are two completely different feelings. So, naturally, this performance left an enormous shock on my young mind.

Later, I saw Mr. Lu Chen on the Spring Festival Gala and learned what a true master looks like. I was once obsessed with debunking magic; though I hit walls repeatedly, I also learned not to be affected by misdirection. Finally, I started learning magic myself.

The trigger was also related to Mr. Lu Chen: he joined Bilibili. His “Magic Class” videos felt like debunking, but in reality, he genuinely wanted to teach us (for instance, I learned the word ‘misdirection’ right here). After watching a few videos, Tianyao was eager to try, but still needed an opportunity.

High school was a brand new environment with unfamiliar people and unlearned knowledge. Using magic to leave an impression on everyone seemed like a good choice here.

One afternoon during self-study class, I pulled two books from the bookshelf, mimicking that shopkeeping grandma, and said to the classmate next to me: “Did you know? Recently, an FBI scientific study found that things seen by human eyes stay on the retina for a while… What, you don’t believe me? Come, let me show you…”

Want to know how I did it? Go subscribe to Lu Chen’s class on Bilibili!

The effect was great, the classmates around me were all amazed, and the emotional value was completely maximized.

Well, although my classmates kept asking me to reveal the secret at that time, when I actually offered to teach them, they didn’t seem very interested (

Forget about that. Anyway, later on, adhering to the perform-and-teach model, I had a few more magic performances, mostly at venues like evening galas that required talent shows.

Compared to singing and dancing, magic has an inherent advantage: the audience will definitely watch and stay engaged. However, accompanying this is the test of the magician’s performing skills. Mr. Lu Chen often emphasizes that the principles of magic are usually very simple, and the truly difficult part is the performance once you get the hang of it, for which you need persistent practice. And I barely practice, though fortunately, no major slip-ups have occurred so far.

So why do I love magic? Look closely and its core is encryption: taking something simple, making it complex through layer after layer of technique, then presenting it to an audience. If the audience is fooled, the magician succeeds. The encryption therefore has to be elegant and almost impossible to notice—especially when the magician performs right in front of you. And the decryption side… is that not exactly what I love most? The eureka moment when a trick’s mechanism finally clicks hits me with tremendous force. I still enjoy uncovering secrets, then; I simply no longer ruin the performance for others. (At the club fair, for example, I stopped by the PKU Magic Association and played the enthusiastic audience member. Though the performer’s card handling truly was impeccable—clearly the product of endless practice.) At the same time, like Lu Chen, I hope to pass my love of magic on to more people.

(Oh, by the way, speaking of which, Mr. Lu Chen once mentioned that he also started loving magic after seeing a magic trick in a shop when he was a kid. What a coincidence, isn’t it?)

That is the reason why I wrote down these words.

Wait, how did I miss my subway stop!